The Truth Behind Movie Magic
by linda.jenner
Summary: Hermione's been to the movies. What did she see?


Harry Potter watched as an owl flew in through his open living room door, a bright red envelope held in it's talons.

"A howler? That'll be from Hermione, then." He mused.

**Harry James Potter! What in Godric's name did you DO? I've just been to the cinema to see the Fellowship of the Ring and… bloody hell, I know you had something to do with that. I'm sure that the elves were veela. Veela, Harry, veela! And don't get me started on the Nazgul. You based them on bloody dementors, didn't you? Is Sam Gamgee supposed to be a knock-off of Ron? Really? And Strider? Could you have made him any more like Sirius? Please, please tell me those were patronus' cast under water and not real hippocampus in the Rivendell river scene? And the Watcher-in-the-water? How did you get the giant squid from the Black Lake to New Zealand? I hope you're happy. Now all the muggleborn firsties are terrified he'll eat them. You used Grawp as a cave troll? He's a giant, Harry, not a blasted troll! And what did you use as the balrog? I can't quite make it out. Harry this is bad, really bad. This could be classed as muggle baiting, Harry. You idiot!**

Seconds later a second owl dropped a second letter on the table in front of him. He picked it up and leaned back in his chair to read the few lines that Ron had written. Then he laughed as he pulled a pen and notepad towards him. He had a letter to write…

Dear Hermione.

Lovely to hear from you and Ron. Glad to hear you're pregnant, and no, I still think that plum jam doesn't go with mashed potatoes. How did Molly take the news? More to the point how did your ribs take her reaction?

Yes, the elves are played by veela. Really, Hermione, who else do you know of that could pull off those costumes without looking like complete idiots? No, the Nazgul aren't based on dementors, that's how Tolkien described them, apparently. Go figure. Yes, Aragorn is Sirius, Viggo saw some of my sketches of Sirius and asked if I minded him basing the character around them. Yes, I showed him some pensieve memories, no, I didn't break the statute, his sister teaches Charms at Illvermorny .

Yes, they were real hippocampus and before you get worked up, it was a closed set and the water was saltwater not fresh. I'm not stupid, Hermione, I did pass CoMC with an O+.

Archie came for a holiday, I didn't take him anywhere. And tell the firsties that Archie's only playing. You can't see it on screen, but Elijah's got a handful of mini-donuts and was dropping them into Archie's mouth during the shooting.

You leave Grawp be, he had a ball playing a cave troll. A little makeup goes a long way.

And I'm not telling you who played the balrog. It took me weeks to teach him to roar instead of trill.

Oh, tell your father that I had a few lessons with Bob Anderson! He'll know who I mean. I could have used that back in 2nd year.

They're already in pre-production on the second film and it's going well. I've got another week of down time and then it's back to work. I'm enjoying myself, Weta are a great crew to work with.

Yes, I'll be back in Britain for Christmas, you know I won't miss Molly's Christmas dinner. Or the jumper, winters down here can be bitterly cold. Almost as bad as they are in Hogsmeade.

Love to all,

Harry.

Harry lazed in a hammock, strung between two trees at the edge of the cliff looking out over the Pacific Ocean and watched as a familiar shape floated down to hover above him. Molly's letter fell to his lap, forgotten as the owl drew nearer.

"Another howler, eh? Bet she saw the movie." He laughed as the owl dropped the red envelope and flew away.

**Harry! Did you have to? Just how many trees did you take from the Forbidden Forest? Why did you use an Antipodean Opaleye as the Nazgul's Fell Beasts? Please tell me that wasn't your cloak the hobbits used in front of the Black Gate? Please, Harry! The more I see him, the more Gandalf looks like Dumbledore. Who's smart idea was that? That better not have been an Enlarging Potion, I saw Merry and Pippin drinking. Harry! You shouldn't have used a bombarda to replace the black powder explosion at Helm's Deep. True black powder has red-ish smoke not blue-ish. You're being very reckless and blasé about the statue, Harry. Stop it!**

Dear Hermione.

Pregnant again, I hear? Thank Molly for the warning, for me. The cottage is nice, but I don't know how you managed to get Ron to live within sight of the Burrow. I just don't.

I didn't take any trees from Hogwarts' Forbidden Forest, I didn't need to. PJ has a contact with MoMNZ that convinced the German Ministry to provide 50 trees from the Black Forest for filming. Ha, not my fault. Neither was the Opaleye. PJ planned to use it for the balrog, but liked my idea better.

No, the hobbits weren't using an invisibility cloak, it was a camouflage cloak, you're married to an Auror, Hermione, you should know the difference between invisibility cloaks and camouflage cloaks. PJ left Gandalf for Mr McKellen to work out, he and Mr Lee spent days on that. Guess who met Dumbledore when the Grindelwald war overlapped with the muggles World War 2? Did you know that the great Christopher Lee was a squib? I sure didn't, he caught me completely flatfooted when he knew who I was. Me!

No, it wasn't an enlarging potion, it was an invigorating draught. And I only used a bombarda when the black powder wouldn't explode the way PJ wanted. I doubt that many people, other than you and Seamus, would pick up on that.

Yes, I'll be back for Christmas, but only for a few days, Weta are well into production for the third movie and work is resuming on the 2nd of January, but my lease is up on the 27th of December, so I need to find a new house. Thank Merlin for wizarding tents and specialty trunks, heh?

My portkey leaves Auckland at 4pm on the 22nd and gets in at 3am in London, thanks to the time-zone differences. So, I figure I'll stay at Grimmauld Place and give Kreacher something to do, that's not toddler related. Andi tells me that Teddy and Kreacher have a great relationship, almost as good as the Regulus/Kreacher one, but the blasted elf still hates her, Teddy has to give him all the orders or nothing gets done.

Anyway, see you soon. Love to all,

Harry.

The screech of an owl woke Harry way too early, after a night that ran way to late. He opened a bleary eye and groaned at seeing the red envelope.

"Bollocks." He muttered. "My head hurts too much for this." He sighed and flicked his wand, summoning a hangover cure from his bathroom. It touched his hand at the same time s the envelope opened and began to rant in a familiar voice.

**Harry James Potter! Did you really give a muggle a patronus crystal? Harry! You know better than that. The Paths of the Dead? Please tell me you didn't use the Stone? You said you destroyed it. Shelob? How in hell did you smuggle an Acromantula from Scotland to New Zealand?! More to the point. Why?! Harry, this is dangerous, you shouldn't be doing this. Please stop, please, Harry. No more. Come home. Please?**

The last three words, Hermione was almost crying.

Dear Hermione.

You worry too much, are you pregnant, again? I thought you said two was enough?

The ICW is well aware of what we're doing and we have the certifications to prove it. We even have a liaison officer that comes out each week to log what we've done. Don't fret about it.

Mosag, did you ever meet her? She was Aragog's wife. She and the kids had a problem with Arthur's car, it constantly ran through their webs, she asked Hagrid for help and Hagrid asked me and I relocated the car to that island in Loch Sionasgaig, you know the one, it had the ruins of Ravenclaw's castle on it. Anyway, Mosag owed me a favour and when PJ said he needed a giant spider, I thought she might like a holiday. She had a ball and I kept her well fed, we'd go feral deer hunting every weekend. Karl took us to his Uncle's place, as a treat for Mosag's last hunt, she got a stag that looked so much like Prongs, I had to bite my tongue, that and a couple of penguins. Don't ask me why, but she wanted to try them.

Yes, I destroyed the Stone, but he first time I used the Cloak after Hogwarts, I found the Stone and the Wand in a pocket in the Cloak. I tried a couple of times to snap the wand and while it worked, the next time I put the Cloak on, the wand was back in one piece and back in the pocket. I don't think I'm ever going to get rid of the damn things.

I didn't use the Stone for filming, I've no intentions of telling anyone about them. We did try a necromancer but discovered that the shades that a necromancer summons, don't show up properly on film, but true ghosts do. So, we put a call out to all the haunted houses in NZ and me and a couple of crew from the Spec Effects Unit made a heap of anchor stones for them. One of the guys, Dave Booth, has his Ancient Runes mastery, but he still works for Weta as a physical effects tech. He showed us how to layout a short-term anchor, it's used mostly for relocating ghosts from muggle buildings to magical ones. We had to make nearly three hundred of the blasted things. Took us almost a week.

So that's the end of work on Lord of the Rings. We're all kinda hoping that PJ will do Hobbit one day, but in the meantime, there's plenty of work to do. We're already in filming for Peter Pan and in pre-production for a Vampire/Werewolf film, I think it's call Van Halsing, but I'm not too sure. Then there's a dragon film in talks, the ICW are still debating that one, I suggested that Weta get Charlie and his reserve involved, so we'll see how it goes.

No, I am not coming back to Britain to live, the Prophet can get buggered. I've had enough of being the Man-Who-Conquered or whatever stupid hyphenated rubbish they've come up with. I've bought myself an island on the edge of the Fiordland National Park on the South Island, it's about 100 miles from Queenstown. There's no close neighbours and nothing between me and Australia but water. The downside was, there were no liveable buildings, but I did find the ruins of an old stone tower/keep. The goblins rebuilt it and made enough modifications for me give Buckbeak and his ladylove plenty of space to fly in and out, without landing. You'll have to bring Ron and the kids down, George and Angelina were here with Roxie and little Freddie, my gods, they're growing fast!

I think that it my turn to host Christmas, can you talk to the other wives and see what they think? I've connected the floo and yes, it will take international trips, the address is Hippogriff's Haven and the password is the same as to open the map.

Had Luna come for a cuppa the other day, I forgot how she seems to just know things. I'd only just had the floo connected and minutes later, out she pops. Neville's coming down, he wants to go plant hunting with Professor Sprout, something about a miniature Devil's Snare?

Back on the Christmas thing, yeah, talk to the girls and see if they're interested in a summer Christmas, my treat.

Love to all,

Harry.

Hermione laid the letter down on the long Weasley kitchen table.

"Well? Who's interested?" She asked the gathered family.

George and Angelina nodded, as did Bill and Fleur. Percy and Audrey shrugged and Charlie laughed. Molly leant on Arthur and smiled. Ginny looked at her husband and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, sure. Let's go visit Scarhead." He sighed, but nodded. "Just don't let him hex me."

"Teddy's been itching to go, begging for weeks, now." Andi added.

"He said the floo's connected, right?" Ron asked. "Why wait? Let's go right now." He stood and reached for the floo-powder.


End file.
